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EMBRACING A PIVOTAL MOMENT FOR SOCIAL SCIENCE

Political Scientist and Dean of the Social Science Division Fred Harris was interviewed in a front-page profile for Columbia Record, where he shared his vision and goals for his deanship.

For Fredrick C. Harris, this is an important moment to be dean of social science at Columbia. “We’re living in times when knowledge itself is being questioned and in many ways delegitimized,” he said. “My goal is to make sure the social sciences have a voice, to guard against that type of irrational thinking.”

To that end, he wants to ensure Columbia’s social science faculty have the resources they need and that their work is accessible within and outside the University. He plans to continue a speakers’ series he began last year featuring scholars from Columbia and elsewhere, and he wants to start podcasts featuring Columbia faculty.

“Sometimes excellent work lays dormant in academic journals and only those specializing in that particular type of research have access to it,” he said. “For me, it’s important that knowledge becomes usable for the greater good, to make a stronger and more just society.”